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Sunday, October 28, 2012

A much belated thing or two...

Oh, my! I got so good about blogging on Wednesday nights that I sort of assumed on Thursday morning that I'd done it, and then things got hectic! (We'll get back to that...)

This week at Stitch n' Bitch:

Madeline made an appearance with not one, but TWO completed sweaters! Check out the fabulous buttons on this one! Plus, that I-cord edging that I still haven't found a project to try out for myself! I like it. Combined with Katharine's diligent progress, It almost makes me want to knit a fingering weight sweater. Almost.

Here's the other one, with a very happy Madeline inside:

Clara is sticking her tongue out in this picture, which makes me smile. Madeline is hard at work on yet another sweater (this one, however, is baby-sized, and should move a lot quicker for that reason.)

Speaking of Clara:

Look at the size of that Tube! It grows ever so much longer. Maybe she should suspend it from the ceiling and use it as a Tube of silence. Maybe it's a sleeping Tube. Maybe it's a top down sock for a particularly tall person. It could even be a carrier for a great many cats. It could be a Tube trap for assorted mythical creatures. It's up to us to guess, I suppose.

Aaaand look what we have here, ladies and gentlemen! A sweater that surely, by now, has sleeve progress, as this picture is a few days old. Katharine is making record time on this sweater, it will definitely get some wear before too much longer!

Check out the crochet stitch pattern on Lena's blanket! I know it looks like a scarf right now, but it's not. It's a blanket- the beginnings of a blanket!

Here's a yet-to-be-determined project and some ever -so -diligent crochet chain stitch practice (practice makes perfect! I read somewhere that it takes the average person 300 hours of doing something in order to become a master- like drawing, or playing the violin. There's no reason 300 hours of chain stitch would be any different, but I doubt I'd make it to 5 before I started second guessing the merit of mastering it.)

Here's a Halloween doggy sweater for Megan's new puppy. She seemed to be aware that most dogs do not enjoy sweaters, and seemed also not to care. We'll see if her puppy stops wiggling long enough for her to snap some pictures in costume!

Look! A foot! and Jordan's Ridiculously Organized bag of yarn for her sister's granny square blanket. I should have taken a picture of my yarn bag for comparison. Also, you can see my toes in this picture- which reminds me that this week is a very important week- Halloween on Wednesday means it's Halloween sock week! I started with toe socks featuring skulls and roses, and then today was black and white striped witchy socks! Whatever will tomorrow bring...Halloween is the best time of the year for sock shopping. But I digress...

This is what Jordan's sister's blanket will look like when it's done. I don't think the colors are quite right, judging by the yellow of the carpet. It's still really awesome though! That's one lucky sister. The good thing about granny square projects, though, is how portable they are. As soon as she fills her bag up with squares, she can just empty it out and start over until there's enough- no lugging around a big old blanket!

And then there's silly old me- as if knitting wasn't weird enough:

I'm making yarn! I know it looks like I know what I'm doing in this picture, but I promise I don't. I keep dropping the spindle because such thin yarn requires quite a lot of twist. I'm working on it, though. 300 hours, like I said. I'm still stalled on my sweater because I haven't had time to sit down in a quiet place and do the math to figure out what the appropriate increase pattern is. Math is hard. Maybe tomorrow. I have been just as hard pressed for knitting time as I have for blogging time!

And now, a story:

Aric and I visited Iowa State University over the weekend, because they were holding an event for prospective graduate engineering students. I drove. We were nearly there, when I spied a Joann Fabrics sign right next to a Michael's sign, right next to a Target sign, so I did a little happy dance and got off the highway...Bought some fabric, and something truly fabulous that I will show you all on Tuesday. When we were pulling up the ramp to get back on the highway, we were stopped in a line of cars because a police man was at the top of the ramp, stopped with his flashers on, and blocking traffic. I thought there was an accident or something, so we waited. All of the sudden, ten or so police cars drove by on the (empty, because the ramp was blocked) highway- followed by exactly two black SUVs with tinted windows, and eight white SUVs. Behind that, were two large luxury busses ( I don't know what the word for them is- the kind that look like RVs, but they're not...) The not-RVs were followed by an additional eight white SUVs, two black SUVs, and a bunch more police cars with flashing lights. Following up this parade were two more police cars, blocking traffic so that nobody could get into the caravan.

Every time they passed an on-ramp, a car from the front of the line would block it, and a then join again at the back. When we got to Ames, they exited onto a new highway (we watched all this from the bridge over said highway)- and two cars stopped traffic on that highway so that it was empty for the caravan.

Aric and I resolved to Google when we got home, to figure out who the very important person was, blocking traffic and traveling exactly at the speed limit (Gah!).

Wanna Guess? You really only have two options.

It was Mitt Romney. He made a campaign stop in Ames, Iowa, while we were visiting the Applied Mathematical Sciences lab at Iowa State.

In other news: the bell tower there played the theme song from Mario at 11:00.